It’s been slim pickings for comedies this year on the big screen, but to coincide with the double DVD release yesterday of two of the year’s best efforts: In the Loop and I Love You, Man, and as we are rapidly nearing the end of the first decade of the new millennium, it seemed like an opportune time to count down my Top Ten Comedies of the 21st Century (So Far).

Much like the rules of Dogme, but less confusing, I had certain criteria that must be filled to make the list; so there is no place for hybrids like action-comedies and dramedies (although one self-professed hybrid did sneak in) we are focussing on straight up, 100%, pure comedies, or at least trying to.

Sadly the movie of David Hasselhoff drunkenly eating a burger off the floor didn’t make the cut; but some very funny films did, so sit back, put your feet up and wrap your laughing gear round my Top Ten Comedies of the 21st Century (So Far) and just remember – there’s no accounting for taste.

#10
Hot Rod
(2007)

It probably wouldn’t make most of your lists, but hey, I’m weird like that. I love Andy Samberg and The Lonely Island’s whole shtick and firmly believe that sooner or later Samberg and to a lesser extent Jorma Taconne and Akiva Schaffer will be huge stars.

Hot Rod has become somewhat of a cult hit on DVD after its rather disappointing and limited box office run – thanks mainly to Samberg’s popularity on SNL and the Digital Shorts he and his Lonely Island compadres have been producing for Lorne Michaels’ Saturday night institution.

The film itself has a nice little cast, Samberg’s SNL co-star Bill Hader and a pre-flavour of the week Danny McBride round out his crew and there are also appearances by Sissy Spacek and a scene-stealing Ian McShane as Rod’s Mum and Stepfather respectively.

Hot Rod has some great sight gags, some surreal Will Ferrell-esque humour (it was originally conceived as a Ferrell vehicle) and a very funny Footloose-riffing punch-dance number; and if that doesn’t float your boat, how can you not love a film that features a soundtrack made-up almost entirely of Europe songs?

#9
Wedding Crashers
(2005)

After his breakthrough role in 1996’s Swingers Vince Vaughn went all serious on us with a role in Jurassic Park: The Lost World and the pretty dire trio of the Psycho remake, The Cell and Domestic Disturbance.

However since the start of the new Millennium he has carved out his niche as one of the most successful comedy actors working today. He has an uncanny knack for developing electric on screen chemistry with almost any co-star (Reese Witherspoon being the exception to that rule, I mean, come on – is there a more unlikely couple!?)

This trademark Vaughn chemistry is on display in all its glory in 2005’s Wedding Crashers. Teaming up with Owen Wilson, who was effectively playing the Aykroyd to Vaughn’s Belushi, Vaughn was larger than life as divorce lawyer and wedding crasher Jeremy Grey.

Wedding Crashers wasn’t just the Vince Vaughn show though, it also had Christopher Walken, well, being Christopher Walken, a very funny Will Ferrell cameo and Bradley Cooper showing the sort of charisma that would a couple of years later make him the star of his own hit movie.

The real star of Wedding Crashers undoubtedly is Vaughn though, and it is his and Wilson’s bro-mance which gives a film about a rather unscrupulous subject a nice touch of warmth and ultimately makes the film… even if they did trot out that awful cliché – the foul-mouthed Granny, but hey, Catherine Tate’s made a career out of that.

#8
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
(2005)

The 40-Year-Old Virgin was the first of the new wave of big screen Apatow productions and still has the most heart out of all his subsequent efforts.

The film made box office stars of Steve Carrell and Seth Rogen and gave Apatow the blueprint for success that every one of his films since has as good as followed: ‘guy’ comedy with heart.

On hearing the film’s title, I assumed it would be a slapstick affair with very crude jokes played entirely for laughs of the lowest common denominator; but although there are the moments of crudity, for the most part the 40-Year-Old-Virgin is a love story and a tale of one man’s ambivalence to sex.

The supporting cast are all great, Romany Malco and Paul Rudd round out Carrell’s co-workers with Rogen, Elizabeth Banks turns up as a kinky and extremely randy potential love interest and Catherine Keener adds a bit of class to proceedings as the object of Carrell’s Andy’s affections.

The 40-Year-Old-Virgin remains the strongest of the new wave of Apatow films if you ask me, and pioneered this new sub-genre of the date movie that those of us with Y chromosomes can actually enjoy; which if it means it gets guys out of seeing dire wank like He’s Just Not that into You can only be a good thing.

#7
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
(2004)

Dodgeball does exactly what it says on the tin: provides big, dumb fun. Kicking off the recent spate of minority sport comedies, 2004’s Dodgeball features one of Ben Stiller’s more over the top performances (which is saying something) but it works. His megalomaniacal White Goodman is a vain, deluded simpleton, otherwise known as a perfect comedy villain.

Vince Vaughn gives a rather toned down performance as White’s nemesis and antithesis, the laid-back Peter LaFleur. As is this case with most of the film’s on this list it is the supporting characters who steal the show though: comedy veteran Stephen Root, Alan Tudyk, Joel Moore, Justin Long and Chris Williams (the guy who played Krazee-Eyez Killa on Curb Your Enthusiasm) round out Peter’s gym members, while the legend that is Rip Torn delivers some brilliant one-liners as slightly insane coach Patches O’Houlihan; “You’re about as useful as a cock flavoured lollipop” being my favourite.

Dodgeball also features some nice cameos from a host of cult icons, even if they do feel a bit tagged on, messrs Hasselhoff and Shatner crop up but the best cameo is reserved for Walker, Texas Ranger himself Chuck Norris – “fucking Chuck Norris”.

#6
Shaun of the Dead
(2004)

One of only two British films to make the list and the only rom-zom-com (romantic zombie comedy) of all time, Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost’s Shaun of the Dead brought them the kind of mainstream success that fans of the cult hit Spaced would’ve told you they deserved years ago.

Part one of the ‘Blood and Ice-Cream trilogy’ which was followed by the vastly inferior Hot Fuzz and will be rounded out by the upcoming The World’s End, Shaun of the Dead fuses the rich intertexuality and pop culture referencing of Spaced with homages to other classic horror and zombie features.

Shaun of the Dead’s greatest achievement though is to avoid falling into the usual Brit comedy trap of being really shit; it’s commercial success worldwide and amongst industry peers and critics says a great deal about just how well made this film is.

Without a doubt, the greatest British comedy of the last ten years, and possibly even all time (at least until Malcolm Tucker took to the big screen earlier this year that is…)

#5
The Hangover
(2009)

This year’s perhaps somewhat surprising box office smash, The Hangover seemed to come out of nowhere. With no real star power to speak of, Todd Phillips’ film received little to no hype but thanks to a very funny script and some great performances The Hangover became a runaway success.

Following the Very Bad Things template of a Vegas stag do gone wrong, The Hangover took a more novel approach to the clichéd debauched night and skipped over it all to the morning after – hence the title. We never do see their antics; apart from a very funny end credits slideshow and, bizarrely, security footage from Mike Tyson’s house.

The Hangover’s main strength was the rapport between its three leads: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and the genius that is Zach Galifianakis. Pretty much untested in lead roles, the three of them should now have a, deservedly, bright future – the film’s success has seen talk of a sequel begin already.

Not just a raunchy ‘guy’ comedy, The Hangover is also smart, dark in places and has the right amount of warmth, but most importantly it has big, hearty laughs from start to finish. If it wasn’t for a rather sweary Scottish man it could have been comedy of the year.

#4
Team America: World Police
(2004)

This 2004 Thunderbirds-inspired offering from South Park masterminds Trey Parker and Matt Stone didn’t fare to well at the box office for some reason, but it is easily one of the most satirical, clever comedies of the decade.

Endlessly quotable and, like all of Parker and Stone’s work, boasting an amazing collection of songs, Team America: World Police skewered America’s penchant for policing the world and at the same time satirised Hollywood’s politically vocal liberals.

In addition to the razor-sharp satire and musical offerings, Team America also has everything you could possibly want from a film: irritating Hollywood types dying horribly bloody deaths, rather graphic sex scenes (just a shame they are puppets) and a plot played for laughs in which the Eiffel tower is blown up, which was preposterously stolen for the recent GI Joe movie…

…and any film that manages to piss off Sean Penn is alright with me.

#3
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for
Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
(2006)

Controversy courting Sacha Baron Cohen’s second big screen outing righted most of the wrongs of Ali G Indahouse.

Kazakhstan’s most famous son Borat Sagdiyev’s journey across America is a work of comedy genius. Continuing the format that made Cohen’s TV programme’s so successful: exposing prejudices and making supposedly intelligent people look ignorant, uninformed and out and out stupid, Borat is dually hilarious and uncomfortable viewing.

The plot sees Borat deviate from his fact finding mission in the US to go off in search of Pamela Anderson who he hopes to “make sexy time” with after he sees her in an episode of Baywatch. The plot though is secondary to a series of very funny interviews and interactions with unsuspecting Americans and the most grotesque nude scene you may ever see courtesy of the film’s unsung hero: Borat’s producer Aazamat Bagatov (played by Ken Davitian).

Nothing is sacred in Borat and you have to respect a comedy with balls that big, lawsuits abound after the film’s release and Cohen has managed to offend just about everyone, but if you ask me lawsuits and outrage invariably mean comedy gold.

#2
In the Loop
(2009)

Undoubtedly comedy of the year, maybe even film of the year, Armando Iannucci’s satirical masterpiece In the Loop was for all intents and purposes a bigger and bolder film adaptation of the greatest British sitcom of recent years The Thick of It.

Only retaining a couple of characters from the TV show, luckily one of those was the vitriolic master of spin Malcolm Tucker aka The Enforcer – the man who can swear like a dirty coal miner with an English Language degree.

In the Loop saw the action move across the Atlantic from Whitehall to Washington and New York as Tom Hollander’s inept MP inadvertently kicks off an international incident and becomes an unwitting pawn in something much bigger than him.

Almost universally praised on its criminally low-profile and limited release, In the Loop is a cynical joy, with the greatest collection of one-liners ever gathered together in one film. It is testament to the quality of the writing that they were able to attract someone of James Gandolfini’s stature to appear, and his scene with Tucker is nothing short of epic.

I know Matt is touting Peter Capaldi as a potential OSCAR nominee next year for his role as Malcolm Tucker, and as unlikely as that may seem it would be very richly deserved.

#1
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
(2004)

It would take something spectacularly funny to pip In the Loop to the top spot of this list but for me Anchorman is just that. Ron Burgundy is one of the finest comedy creations in the history of, well, comedy.

Nothing Will Ferrell has done since has even held a candle to Anchorman and as much as part of me wants to see it, I can only hope that they don’t actually press on with the rumoured sequel. Any film where the outtakes and deleted scenes can be spliced together to make another companion film obviously has something going for it – even if Wake up, Ron Burgundy is an incoherent mess, much like Ron after he is fired from Channel 4.

Anchorman has to be the most quoted film of the last ten years and boasts the sort of surreal humour that made Ferrell famous during his SNL stint. The supporting players are all brilliantly conceived characters brought to life by some truly great performances; Messrs Koechner, Carrell and Rudd all deserve a mention for their roles as Ron’s news team and there are some decent cameos throughout by a collective who’s who of Hollywood’s comedy A-List and, rather oddly, Tim Robbins.

Anchorman may not have set the box office alight but has found a mass cult following on DVD – the DVD release boasts one of the laziest, strangest yet most laugh-your-ass-off funny commentaries I’ve ever experienced and is worth the price of the DVD alone.

Ferrell isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I dare say the same goes for Anchorman, but for my money this is ninety minutes of juvenile, stupid, fucking brilliant comedy and is my number one 21st Century Comedy.

What do you think?

Do you agree with my choices?

What would be in your Top Ten?